Posted in: HBO, Preview, streaming, TV | Tagged: Batman, colin farrell, dc studios, hbo max, Penguin

The Penguin: Colin Farrell Offers Filming Update, Praises Makeup Work

Though he was being honored for his work in Martin McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin, Colin Farrell couldn't help but talk about another project he has coming up that more than a few people are interested in. At the Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards Gala on Thursday night, Variety was able to grab a few minutes with Farrell to get an update on how things were looking on showrunner Lauren LeFranc & HBO Max's upcoming Farrell & Cristin Milioti-starring The Penguin. Confirming that production will begin in February and run for about five to six months, Farrell discussed how the idea of his character getting his own spinoff series wasn't something Farrell ever considered heading into starting work on Matt Reeves's The Batman.

"The only thing I had an idea was that I wasn't nearly getting to explore the character as much as I wanted to. Because there was all this extraordinary work done by [makeup artists] Mike Marino and Mike Fontaine and his team, and I just thought it was the tip of the iceberg, pardon the pun, that we were getting to do the six or seven scenes that we did in the film. I was grateful for them, but I wanted more," Farrell shared. In fact, Mike Marino & Mike Fontaine's makeup work inspired Farrell to discuss Oswald's future with producer Dylan Clark. "Honest to god, any thought I had about an extended series was to do with Mike Marino's work. I just knew there was so much to do with it — age it up, age it down. He's just such a genius, Mike, so it was his work that was the inspiration, really," Farrell added. Now, here's a look at a video of the interview, followed by a clip of Farrell sharing what happened when he took a trip to a Starbucks in character after the first makeup test:

"'Penguin' will sit immediately after the end of 'The Batman' and temporally before the events of the second movie. The show will come out in between the two movies. Now beyond that, it's fun for the audience to know that it will be a bridge between the two, but the actual release date, I'm not at liberty to say," HBO Max Head of Original Content Sarah Aubrey explained about the spinoff back in November. "The goal of this is to show what Oz's life is like, and that's very much in the streets of Gotham, trying to get up and over as only the Penguin can. As a hustler and a strategist with his own ambitions. It is a great example of having the time over eight episodes to tell a longer-arc character story with a lot of delicious twists and turns and new characters. It's very much going to be about Gotham at that street level because he's not flying around like Batman does. We are all embracing that as a very specific experience for audiences to have."

Based on characters created for DC by Bob Kane with Bill Finger, The Penguin is produced by Reeves' 6th & Idaho Productions and Dylan Clark Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television. Reeves, Farrell, LeFranc, Clark, and 6th & Idaho's Daniel Pipski & Adam Kassan serve as executive producers, and Rafi Crohn is a co-executive producer. Emmy Award-winning director Craig Zobel (Mare of Easttown) is set to direct two episodes and executive produce.

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